Larry Greenhill

"Here is a recording that should never be played on this small speaker," said Nola's Carl Marchisotto, as he cued up Reference Recordings choral spectacular, John Rutter's Requiem, to play on Nola's new $19,800/pair Studio Grand Reference Gold loudspeaker.

Burmester's upbeat and gregarious CEO, Dieter Burmester, was eager to give a live demonstration of his two newest loudspeakers, the $60,000/pair BA-71 and the smaller $30,000/pair BA 31 (above). The larger BA-71 uses four 160mm woofers while the BA-31 employs two woofers.

Dynaudio's Mike Manousselis welcomed me to the Danish speaker manufacturer's exhibit suite and introduced both the company's founder, Wilfried Ehrenholz (above left) and their new $13,500/pair Focus 600 XD, active loudspeaker (above right) to me. "All There Is" reads Dynaudio's slogan for the new speaker, as it can be connected directly to a network, wired or wireless, to play music.

Danish manufacturer Raidho demonstrated its $30,000/pair, 88 lb, X3 loudspeakers at CES. The remarkable slim towers have four dedicated 4" ceramic midbass drivers and one 8" side-mounted woofer, in addition to a magnetic-planar tweeter that is crossed over at 3kHz.

Stereophile's Jon Iverson grabbed me in the hallway of the Venetian Hotel's 35th floor. He was excited. "You've got to see Avantgarde's new loudspeaker on the 31st floorit's full of features not found in most other loudspeakers." I rushed down the back stairs of the Venetian, and found Avantgarde's Executive Manager, Armin Krauss, who walked me through the $18,500/pair, three-way, Zero 1 loudspeaker.

"This is our new top-of-the-line subwoofer," said James Tanner, as he proudly showed a non-playing Byrston Model T subwoofer that will retail at $4795 each. He described why Bryston built a 110' tower to confirm that sub's anechoic response does actually reach down to 12Hz.

As an audiophile, I've come to associate the size, weight, and price of a subwoofer as quick'n'dirty indicators of its quality. The subwoofers that have worked best in my large listening roomthe Velodyne ULD-18 and DD-18+, Muse Model 18, REL Studio III, JL Audio Fathom f113, and Revel Sub30each weigh more than 130 lbs and cost more than $2500. With some of my reference recordings, all of them have achieved what Robert Harley described in the April 1991 issue of Stereophile as the goals of a quality subwoofer: "seamless integration, quickness, no bloat, and unbelievable bass extension." Yet are back-busting weight, unmanageable size, and nosebleed cost essential to achieving those goals?